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Showing posts with the label Freedom Rides

Direct Action and Activist Discord; Birmingham, AL

May 13-15, Birmingham I'm doing this trip backwards--that is, I'm doing it the opposite way the arrows show in the guide book. I suppose there's no real wrong way to do this, but it's working for me this way. Starting off with Little Rock was chronologically correct, but of course next I went to Memphis, and the assassination of Dr. King (1968). What Memphis gave me, though, was some familiarity with the leaders and activists I was to meet over and over as I went from Birmingham to Montgomery, to Selma, and finally Jackson, MS, and the Delta. In Birmingham, a few things came together for me: a prominent part of Green Book, the Freedom Rides (1960-1961), and Dr. King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963).   If you haven't ever read King's Letter , set aside a few minutes for it.  He was jailed in Birmingham for ' parading without a permit '.  He wrote the letter on scraps of paper that were smuggled in to him. Most of us know that Dr. King's stra...